Phils blog... The aircraft door slid open - below 9,000ft of pure cold air. We were high above a huge lake and river delta, surrounded by snow capped mountains. I was the first to jump. I'd felt only a little nervous while we geared up and boarded the cramped little plane only 15 minutes earlier. A quick glance down out of the hatch, and my human survival instinct momentarily took grip - I can't do this I said - I was sh!tting it! Yes you can, you'll be just fine, said Rob my tandem sky diver. I pushed my fears to [View Full Entry]

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Thanks everyone for all the comments - please keep the coming! If you haven't left a comment please do so! :o) After a very cold night in the campervan we awoke to lots more snow - the snow line about 500m high so everything looked real nice. It was still cloudy and occasional shower so we headed out to an old gold mining town called Arrowtown - which basically hasn't changed much since the 1860s. We looked around the town and shops and skipped on the gold panning - it was too cold! We headed back to Queenstown and walked up [View Full Entry]

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As it was yet again raining we deciding to do a wet-weather activity - so visited a cool little site called Puzzle World - full of optical illusions, puzzles, and a gaint maze. There was some really bizzare illusions like a room full of faces that watched us as we walked around, lots of holograms, a room where water flowed uphill(!), and another room where shelley appeared to become a dwarf while Phil became a giant. See Photos! We then decided to attempt the Giant Maze where we had to find all four corner towers and exit. We foud the first [View Full Entry]

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Today, once again it was raining heavily. grrr. We decided to drive over to Lake Wanaka and towards Queenstown. The drive was dull and boring as although it was through the Mt Aspiring National Park - we couldn't see anything! Just thick low clould; it was wet and cold. We stopped off at a couple of waterfalls to stretch our legs but really didn't do a great deal. In the evening we arrived at Lake Wanaka, where finally a break in the clouds appeared and we explored some of the lake shoreline - around us were mountains; some snow capped. This [View Full Entry]

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Phils Day... Today I went Ice Climbing on the Franz Josef Glacier. The day started at 7.45am where we met our 2 glacier guides and 7 more participants (8 including myself). We headed off up the Franz Josef valley in a rickety old van which had a fragant smell of probably hundreds of other peoples sweat. nice. We parked and started walking up the valley until we met the glacier's terminal face, the lowest in the world at 280m above sea level. The glacier itself is dirty with grit and strewn with rocks and boulders; around are huge cliffs and mountains [View Full Entry]

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The Moari (Natives) call New Zealand "Aotearoa" which literally translates too: "Land of the long white cloud". We reckon a more suitable name would be "Land of too much long white cloud, and too much rain"! The weather today was terrible: cold, rain, and thick low cloud. We couldn't see those supposed fantastic views which all the brochures, leaflets and postcards show: The Fox or Franz Josef Glacier, the snow capped mountains, or the rain forests. Except for a walk around Fox Glacier village and Franz Josef township we petty much spent the whole day couped up inside the campervan. Cam [View Full Entry]

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After a quick visit to the tourist information center at Greymouth we headed off to a "town" called Shantytown. Shantytown is an old gold mining town, recreated and relocated from original buildings and machinery, in an old gold mining area. Its basically like Beamish in the UK. It was interesting to see how people worked and lived during the manic gold-rush period in New Zealand. The highlight of the day: Goldpanning! Phil and Shell managed to find flakes of gold after panning for what seemed like ages; the only trouble is that its not enough to make us rich (and extend [View Full Entry]

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Our first stop today was Cape Foulwind. Not much here other than a path along the coast and a lighthouse. After just a few minutes we left again. Our second stop was at the Tauranga Bay to sea a Seal colony. Here there were many seals; pups and adults, males and females, sleeping and playing. There weren't many in the water as there was a huge swell so there was plenty of surf and large crashing waves in every direction. As we followed the West Coast Road south, the sea to our right and huge cliffs and mountains to our left, [View Full Entry]

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Today we climbed the Mt Robert; a steep sided mountain which overlooked Lake Rotoiti and several other mountain ranges. At the end of the Lake Rotoiti valley there where mountains still holding onto their snow. The climb up was suprisingly easy so we continued along the range for more views. As we started to descend the weather closed in, the clouds lowered, and as we returned to the van it started to rain. We'd made the best of the weather and did a pretty decent walk - but we really wanted to head up the valley further and do a 2 [View Full Entry]

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Today was basically another driving day (again; grrr) as we headed to Nelson Lakes National Park. It was another warm sunny day and there were view after view of mountains, subtropical forests, gorges, and rivers - tons of scenery! Just a shame we had to drive past it all! Eventually we reached Saint Arnaud, a small town giving access to the Nelson Lakes. We took a short walk by lake (surrounded me steep mountains and waterfalls) and through the native forest before finding somewhere to camp for the evening. [View Full Entry]

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